Girl Detective

When I lived by myself after college, I had few belongings, and I cleaned my apartment weekly. It was usually both tidy and clean.

After I married, I cleaned bi-weekly, and usually kept things tidy.

After I had my first child, and after the first sleep-deprived, bewildering months, I cleaned about once a month, and had trouble keeping things tidy in our small apartment. The influx of baby clothes and toys made things more difficult. Our place was mostly clean, but cluttered.

After I got pregnant with a second child, things really went south. Cleaning fell to the bottom of the priority list. We’d moved into a two-story house with a finished basement. While we didn’t have a lot of square feet, it was still double what we’d had before. We had more clothes, and more toys. We’d accumulated more things, since we had more space to put it in. Our house was neither clean nor tidy.

After I was diagnosed with post-partum depression, my sister Sydney kindly offered to help by paying for a cleaning service. I gratefully accepted, though I was stricken with guilt. Shouldn’t I clean my own house? But since I was struggling inwardly with my emotions and outwardly with parenting, I decided to accept whatever help was offered, and try NOT to feel guilty about it.

Then, as my depression lessened with treatment, my guilt crept back. Shouldn’t I be able to clean my own house? Especially since I now would have a few days to myself with the boys at daycare? I decided to have someone in once more, and see how it went.

It went beautifully. She cleaned while I organized. I got around to projects I’d put off for years. I realized why I’m so bad at cleaning my own house: I can’t just clean. I stop to put things away, or I do laundry AND clean, or I slow down when I have to figure out what to do with something. The benefit of having someone else clean was I could set the priorities (bathrooms, then kitchen floor, then dusting, then vacuuming) and she did them efficiently in that order. She had no connection to what was in her way. I could spend time on the things that usually interrupt my attempts to clean while she cleaned. It was a good combination.

I still feel unreasonably guilty that I am not able to cook, clean, read, write, and care for the boys even if just part time. But seeing that it’s a tandem working relationship, with me organizing while someone else cleans, feels like a much better, and healthier, interpretation.

For the past several years, and the past three domiciles, I’ve wanted to get organized, and catch up on all the magazines, and bibs and bobs of paper and photos that have accumulated over the last decade (ulp!) or so. Two moves and two children made getting my act together all the more difficult. I’ve got boxes full of drifting and shifting piles.

I am beginning to suspect that if I am ever to make a dent in the backlog, I’ll just have to throw all the old stuff out without looking at it or reading it, and then more fiercely police what comes into the house. Already I’ve reduced our magazine subscriptions to four, I recycle whatever we can, I donate frequently, and I take superfluous books to Half Price Books. On bad days, it feels as if I’m barely making a dent, which is further reason for me to consider a virtual fire of all the old stuff, and start anew.

Edward Copeland creates a top 100 list of his own that I find much better than AFI’s. (Link thanks to A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago.) While Copeland’s list does include the Coen brothers’ Miller’s Crossing, I still found some of my favorite films missing. I feel a list of my own percolating, though I’m not sure if I have the stamina or follow through to come up with 100.

The New York Times joins the book weeding discussion. There are some good suggestions, but I have a few others.

1. Give away your books in the easiest way you can. I take mine to Half Price Books. If they want them, they give me money. If they don’t, they recycle them. Selling, sending, giving some books here and others there is a fine idea. But it’s going to take more time and effort just to rid yourself of something you’re done with already.

2. Most used books won’t bring much, if any money. Why? Because if you don’t want them, chances are others won’t, either. Don’t argue with the person at the used book store. They are not living in a mansion on the profits from your National Geographics.

Weeding books now, and not missing them later, are wonderful things.

There’s a kerfuffle about the AFI’s updated list of the 100 Best American Movies. Like all lists, it is a tool to foment discussion, not to define tastes. I’ve written before about the stupidity of lists, and the propensity of we bloggers (us bloggers?) to get our undies in a twist

I don’t agree with Roger Ebert about Fargo. I’ve only seen it once, and since I live in the mocked MN, I should see it again, but I remember it as prohibitively violent for my medium-delicate sensibilities.

That the Coen Brothers are not represented is the thing to me: O Brother Where Art Thou, Miller’s Crossing, and their first, Blood Simple, all impressed me greatly. Where are other of my favorite directors, like John Sayles, and Terence Malick? Added later: Michael Mann? Steven Soderburgh?

It’s not a great list; I think it confuses popularity or cultural relevance with greatness. Also, I’m interested in how many women were on the voting panel. This seems a very guy-oriented list. Yes, like literature guys have had the power, so the best-ofs will be weighted in their favor, but there are women making good movies. I agree with Carrie Rickey about Clueless, which I found surprisingly substantive.

Time Out’s Centenary Top 100 is my favorite film list; I wish they would’ve updated this one. I buy the Time Out film guide annually, and I check the Time Out online site for reviews of current movies.

Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle is getting rid of books, (link thanks to Pages Turned) and feels the same way about John Burdett’s Bangkok 8 and Bangkok Tattoo as I do:

“Bangkok Tattoo” by John Burdett. Here’s an interesting phenomenon. I thought Burdett’s previous book, “Bangkok 8,” was just wonderful. I was eager to read his second book. It’s exactly like the first book, only not as good. It’s like seeing a magic show twice in one night — you know what to look for, and it begins to feel like a cheat. But hell: One good book is more than I’ve ever written.

Unlike Carroll, though, I haven’t got rid of BT. I’ve written before about the difficulty of weeding. A few questions help me:

1. Am I likely to read it again?
2. Am I likely to refer to it again? (This learned after giving away my Hegel and Heidegger texts. D’oh.)
3. Is it out of print, difficult to find used, or not at the library?

If I answer yes to any of those, the book stays. I’ve made mistakes over the years (I’m currently wishing I hadn’t given away my copy of Bharati Mukhergee’s The Holder of the World) yet I can count on my fingers the number of deacquisitions I’ve regretted, in contrast to the gazillion I am glad to be rid of.

#20 in my 2007 book challenge was the 1474-page A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth.

But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they’re bad, they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they’re good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of Middlemarch. (p. 1371-2)

My friend Thalia recommended A Suitable Boy to me to me at least a decade ago; it was so huge that I couldn’t work up the gumption even to buy it. But since Thalia was instrumental in helping me realize a recent three-week vacation (more on this, soon), I figured it was past time to honor her recommendation.

A Suitable Boy centers on a number several families and their criss-crossing lives. It’s set in post-Gandhi India. Family ties, and the tension between the Muslim and Hindu citizens of the newly independent country are two of the many themes that structure this complex, enriching and satisfying novel. I not only enjoyed the experience of reading ASB, but I also learned a great deal about a critical juncture in India’s history.

I also acquired an appreciation for the practice of bringing only one very long book on vacation. It allowed me a deep, focused reading experience and helped to situate me in a simple, relaxing, few-decisions-to-make, one-thing-at-a-time groove. All my reading life, I’ve fretted over what and how much reading material to bring on trips. I did the one-big-book-for-vacation thing once before, with Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, and had a similarly joyous reading experience. It takes some care, and some trust in the recommender, to choose the book. But it’s low risk, since bookstores, and other book sources (like informal resort libraries, personal collections, or other reading vacationers who are happy to pass on their just-read items) are often at hand. For my next trip, I’m considering Middlemarch, Mansfield Park, Bleak House and Anna Karenina.

#45 in my 2007 movie challenge was Sabrina, part of the Audrey Hepburn Collection that my husband G. Grod got me for Mothers Day, to balance out the other box set. Sabrina is a classic Cinderella tale, with a Parisian transformation, and a handsome “prince” who doesn’t recognize the chauffeur’s daughter who’s been pining after him for years. Holden is delightful as the playboy brother, Bogart is funny, and charming enough to pull off the May/December pairing with Hepburn’s radiant Sabrina. Cary Grant was originally cast in the Bogart role; it would have made an interestingly different film given the variance in the actors’ looks. Only the pre-Paris Sabrina clothes are by Edith Head. Hepburn chose Givenchy to design her character’s transformed look. The role helped to make her a star; the wardrobe made her an icon. (These details are from the documentary DVD extra, more here.)

#44 in my 2007 movie challenge was Pretty in Pink, part of the “Too Cool for School” John Hughes box set that my husband got me for Mothers Day. I’d had an inexplicable craving to watch the Hughes movies again, but I worried that Pretty in Pink wouldn’t have aged gracefully. I was pleasantly surprised.

Yes, the dazzling array of “volcanic ensembles” shows 80’s teen fashion in all its painful glory, but the story is a timeless one. Ringwald plays Andi, a senior in high school whose mother ran away a few years before. She lives with her shiftless but loving father on the wrong side of the literal tracks. Her best friend is Duckie, played by Jon Cryer, whose obsession with fashion is exceeded only by his unrequited love for Andi. Andrew McCarthy is “richie” Blane (Duckie: “That’s not a name! It’s a major appliance!”) who develops a crush on Andi, and tries to assure her that their Cinderella story will work. James Spader plays the deliciously nasty Steph, who tries to shame Blane out of dating Andi. The tension centers on whether Blane and Andi will go to the prom. Surprisingly, this conflict is not as superficial as it sounds. The ending does a pretty good job of having it both ways. Andi goes to the dance alone, where she meets Duckie, who redeems his movie-long annoyingness by telling her Blane came alone, and urging her to go with Blane when he tries to apologize. Blane and Andi make out in the parking lot to OMD, and, I assume, live happily ever after.

The story works because Ringwald is believable and like-able as the outcast girl who is scared to hope things might get better. Cryer is hilarious, and his lip-syncing to “Try a Little Tenderness” still has the power to wow me. Annie Potts is sympathetic as Andi’s older, weirder friend Iona, and McCarthy does a good job being the cute nice boy who’s “not like the others.”

One of the extras on the “Everything’s Duckie” edition of the DVD is an extended explanation that borders on apologia for why they changed the original ending, in which Andi and Duckie danced together. Test audiences didn’t like it, and neither did Ringwald, who felt affection for, but not chemistry with, Cryer’s Duckie. The cast got called back six months later to reshoot. McCarthy was in a play for which he’d shaved his head and lost weight. That’s why the cute boy is suddenly not as cute in the final scene. It’s not that he’s been pining for Andi, it’s that he’s gaunt and wearing a bad wig.

I can understand why many people, especially those who root for underdogs, believe that Duckie should have been the boy at the end. I agree with Ringwald, though. They didn’t have spark, and it’s a Cinderella story. The poor, nice girl needs to end up with the cute, nice, rich boy. Otherwise the message is an uncomfortable “stick to your own class, babe,” which would have made for a much darker movie, like John Sayles’s 1982 Baby It’s You.

I was sad to see, though, that Andi’s transformation of Iona’s “dreamy” prom dress was still as ugly and unbecoming as I remembered. The Duckie/Blane argument may go on forever, but I’ve never met anyone who liked the dress at the end better than the original.

#43 in my 2007 movie challenge was Network, which at 30+, is pleasingly timeless. It’s funny, sharp, and bitter, with great performances (all Oscar-nominated, or -winning) by Dunaway, Finch, and Holden. Finch died before nominations were announced, then won posthumously for Best Actor.

Network made me realize how much over the last three decades has been influenced by it: Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night and Studio 60, Good Night and Good Luck, Broadcast News. Those are the ones that came to mind immediately; there are many more. As is often the case, the famous line from the movie is not a direct quote. Finch says, “I’m AS mad as hell, and I’m not going to take THIS anymore!: (Emphasis mine.) The people who parrot him, though, misquote him with the more familiar “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” An 18-year-old Tim Robbins made his uncredited film debut in two scenes, the more notable of which is the last one.

#42 in my movie challenge for the year was The Prestige, the magic movie from last year that starred Michael Caine, Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johanson. Dark and moody like Nolan’s Batman Begins, The Prestige also doesn’t stick strictly to reality. Bale is very good, Jackman is less so, and Johanson is forgettable. The story is told in three separate time lines that meld into one by the end. As in Nolan’s Memento, the non-linear storytelling is surprisingly not difficult (I can’t quite bring myself to say “easy”) to follow. Even though my husband and I saw aspects of the reveal well in advance, the ending still gave me pause, and threw its illumination back on previous scenes, once the movie was done. The Prestige FAQ at imdb.com has a good summary of these.

#41 in my 2007 movie challenge, Ocean’s Thirteen is, like Eleven, a fun, escapist, romp. Twelve was so badly reviewed I didn’t bother to see it. The sprawling cast features great vignettes from everyone, though Pacino and Ellen Barkin are underutilized, and somewhat flat. But the duo of Clooney and Pitt oozes the kind of cool that characterized Sinatra’s original.

#40 in my movie challenge for the year was Dreamgirls. Imbalanced. Pretty to look at and sporadically fun to watch. The two actors whose characters are most compelling are Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy. When the focus is on Beyonce and Jamie Foxx, the 2-hour-plus movie drags. Some of the musical numbers are good, especially the early Motown-inspired ones. Hudson’s wows in “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” and Beyonce finally shows some spark in “Listen”, but other songs were so dull I got up to do laundry, and didn’t bother to pause the DVD. Beyonce dressed and made up as Diana Ross was worth seeing, but would’ve worked just as well as a magazine spread. The image didn’t translate to character, and did nothing to engage me in the story, and little to move it forward.

#39 in my 2007 movie challenge, Music and Lyrics, was an antidote to the bitterness of #38. M&L is predictable and rather thin, but Grant does a credible job playing a has-been pop star (a thinly veiled analog to Andrew Ridgeley of Wham!) while Barrymore does her usual ditzy/charming schtick. By the end, though, the sweetness between the two of them, and the humorous spectacle of the Britney-esque pop star for whom they’re writing a song, won me over. Further, the catchy, retro-80’s pop music was crafted by Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger, whose obvious affection for the music is easy to appreciate. The music video, and the pop-up version at the end, are hilarious sendups.

#38 in my 2007 movie challenge was Notes on a Scandal. It’s a short, but powerful story about a friendship between Blanchett’s free-spirited art teacher Sheba Hart and Dench’s battle axe history teacher. The nastiness of the film is dense and compressed, like a bitter diamond. The film does a deft balancing act of making both characters believable, understandable, and yet not quite likeable. Dench’s character is ugly inside and out, but her solitary meditations on a life of loneliness are heart wrenching. Sheba is short for Bathsheba, a reference to the Biblical story, in which a beautiful woman is seduced (or possibly commanded) away from her older husband, Uriah the Hittite by a handsome young man, King David.

#37 in my 2007 movie challenge was Adrienne Shelley’s Waitress. I feel cynical when I wonder if the reviews of this film are so effusive because Shelley was murdered before the film was released. It is a very good film, though. I was strongly reminded of the tone of Hal Hartley’s early films such as The Unbelievable Truth, which starred Shelley and that I saw at the Ritz in Philadelphia. It’s by turns bitter and sweet, like the chocolate called for in many of the movie’s pies. Keri Russell and her heart-shaped face are captivating as Jenna, a pie-inventing woman married to a controlling and abusive husband. Jeremy Sisto gives a chilling performance, all the more creepy because of his obvious love for Jenna.

#36 in my 2007 movie challenge was Diggers, starring Paul Rudd. Is there anything he can’t do–television, movies, poker, music, dancing, comedy, and drama?

In Diggers he’s a 70’s clam digger who can’t quite work up the nerve to leave his small job and small town.

Diggers may seem like a tired premise: four working class buddies try with varying success to manage family, work and times that are a-changin’. Yet the acting, the humor of Ken Marino’s script (he played Vinnie Van Lowe on Veronica Mars), and director Katherine Dieckmann’s obvious affection both for the characters and story all elevate this little indie.

Rudd, Marino, and Maura Tierney gave strong performances that resulted in complex, sympathetic characters. Lauren Ambrose and Ron Eldard looked good, but their acting showed–they didn’t inhabit their characters as completely as the rest of the cast. I watched the deleted scenes both with and without commentary. Unlike other DVDs, where the deleted scenes make clear the reason they were cut, these flesh out the characters, and show the process of editing. Some were removed when the storyline changed, and characters were dropped, and sequences of events changed. Yes, a few were superfluous, but overall watching them improved my appreciation for the sweet film a great deal.

From the Chicago Tribune’s “Great books not meant to be used as weapons”

Up north in Canada, novelist Yann Martel (”The Life of Pi”) has started a book club of one member — Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Every couple of weeks since mid-April, he has been sending a new book to Harper in an effort to get the national leader to increase funding for the arts.

I want elected officials to work for literacy, but what Martel is doing feels obnoxious. I love books, but if Martel (or anyone) sent me a book every couple of weeks, I would show up at his house and chuck the books at his head.

I all but stopped giving and loaning books after I read this insightful deconstruction at Outer Life. Gift books create an obligation, both to read and to enjoy the book. I am terrible about reading books in a timely fashion. Gift books often sit on my shelf for years, gathering dust and sending out prickly rays of guilt. I try to finish a book before I recommend it. I learned that lesson from Smilla’s Sense of Snow. I also try only to recommend books I love. As the author of Outer Life noted in another post, recommendations are difficult, too. Too often I’ve sensed the careful phrasing of friends after I’ve loaned or given them something good but not great. And even if I loved the book, like John Burdett’s Bangkok 8, it won’t be every person’s cup of tea.

Instead, now, I try to gently recommend books. I review everything I read here, so readers can seek out or avoid books as they are inclined. The books I am pleased to receive are ones I’ve placed on my wish lists at Amazon. They’ll still sit on my shelf, but at least they are wanted.

New York Magazine’s “The Best Books You’ve Never Read“. Link via Mental Multivitamin.

Wait, I have read some of them! Ron Hansen’s Mariette in Ecstasy, Ali Smith’s The Accidental, and Kelly Link’s Stranger Things Happen. All were well worth my time. But Normal Rush’s Mating, which one critic mentioned as his best? Feh. Hated it. Sexist, pedantic, and needlessly esoteric.

My suggestion for the list? Maureen McHugh’s Mothers and Other Monsters. Shockingly good.

#19 in my 2007 book challenge was The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon. I went to see Chabon discuss this book, a recent selection of Talking Volumes. Chabon in person is good looking, funny, and well spoken. I also saw him on the promotional tour for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. He joked about the danger of obsessing over his rank at Amazon. Since winning the Pulitzer, I’m guessing he doesn’t worry so much. Before that reading, I made an embarrassing gaffe. This time I was much better behaved. I stayed in my seat and kept my mouth shut, and listened while Chabon talked and read from his very entertaining book.

My opinion may be biased. I’ve had a literary crush on Michael Chabon since I read The Mysteries of Pittsburgh in college. It was a book that made me want to become a better reader (see #4). I’ve come to have a great deal of empathy for his wife, author Ayelet Waldman, diagnosed as bipolar after the birth of their fourth child. I admire her further for writing AND being married to Chabon. I would be intimidated to write alongside the multiple-award-winning author who’s been showered with critical acclaim since he was in college. She does, though, and her latest book was well reviewed.

Chabon’s TYPU is an alternate-reality noir, in which Jews were granted temporary exile in Alaska after WWII. Detective (”shammes”) Meyer Landsman investigates the murder of a man who lived in his building. He is discouraged from this by his new boss, who is also his ex-wife. In true noir fashion, he continues to pursue his investigation, pissing people off, getting shot at, and obsessing over dames (his ex and his dead sister). It’s a decent mystery, elevated far above the ordinary by its humor, and Chabon’s fluid prose and the eccentricity of the yiddish/noir/alternate history mix. In the end, though, Chabon has too much affection for his characters for anything very bad to happen. In fact, the description of Landsman’s ex is strikingly similar to that of Chabon’s wife. The novel can also be read, I think, as an extended mash note to her.

TYPU succeeds because it unexpectedly tweaks the noir formula. Like John Burdett did with Bangkok 8 (Buddhist noir) and Jonathan Lethem did with Motherless Brooklyn (noir with Tourette’s syndrome), Chabon has taken a seeming incongruity and made it work. TYPU is clever and fun, though perhaps less bitter than it would like to be.